Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Banks for this fantastic question, and I want to acknowledge the huge contribution that he is already making to the thinking going on in this parliament, even in just his first year in this chamber. We have housing challenges confronting our country that have been building for 40 years. Our government listens to the Australian people. That's why we have created the boldest and most ambitious housing agenda that a Commonwealth government has had since the postwar period. With $45 billion, we're building more homes, we're getting renters a better deal, and we're getting more Australians into homeownership.

The honourable member asked me about homeownership. We have just ticked over helping 230,000 Australians into their first home. I don't care what your politics are; this is a massive number of people for our government to have assisted, and I want every single one of them to know that it is a Labor government that saw their aspiration and helped them realise it. I was asked about alternative approaches. Do you remember the terrible 'super for housing' policy that those opposite took to the last election? Because you're not going to believe this. If you've forgotten about super for housing, let me refresh your memory. This was a policy created by those opposite that would have smashed the retirement savings of younger generations around our country. It would have radically lifted house prices around the country and not built a single home.

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